Greenfield Community College Chorus Preview Concert of "Music for Chorus, Strings, and Piano"

The concert is a preview of a longer program to be given later in the semester. The chorus is  working on a variety of sacred and secular choral music from 1750 to the present in English, Latin, German, and French. Featured at the preview concert will be  two early American numbers, "O Music" a round by Lowell Mason, and Euroclydon, an extended "Anthem for Mariners" by William Billings  filled with plenty of storytelling and drama, with words from Psalm 107. The very beautiful and impressionistic "Cantique de Jean Racine" by Gabriel Fauré, and the spirited popular folk song "Auprès de ma blonde" will also be on the program. The concert also includes a magnificent excerpt from the 1959 Wedding Cantata  by American composer  Daniel Pinkham: "Awake, O North Wind." This is an exciting movement using dissonances, intervals of the fourth and fifth, and driving rhythm to create an exceptionally brilliant effect. Other music from the twentieth century includes Benjamin Britten's lulling "Concord," No. 2 of the "Choral Dances" from Gloriana, an opera about Queen Elizabeth I. The text is by William Plomer. "The Tiger" is a recent composition by Lauren Bernofsky which sets the famous six stanza poem "The Tyger" by William Blake. Conductor Margery Heins will talk to the audience about the program and the music.